About the Company
Vortexion Ltd was founded in 1936 in Wimbledon, United Kingdom, by brothers Sidney and Edward Brown. The company originally made amplifiers and audio electronics and gradually expanded into tape recording equipment after World War II as domestic magnetic recording became commercially viable in Britain. Vortexion’s broader history includes public address amplifiers and mixers, but from the mid-1950s through the late 1960s it also produced its own reel-to-reel tape recorders aimed at the consumer and hobbyist market. The firm remained a relatively small British concern compared with larger international audio names, but it gained recognition for feature-rich machines tailored to home use in the analogue era. Edward Brown died in 1942, and Sidney continued to run the business with family involvement; following his death in 1972 the firm was sold and eventually ceased tape-recorder production.
Early Tape Recorder Development (1950s)
Vortexion’s first self-contained reel-to-reel machines appeared in the mid-1950s as magnetic tape technology entered the British consumer market. Early models used vacuum-tube (valve) electronics and typically adopted standard 220-240 volt mains operation. Examples include units like the Vortexion WVA and WVB, produced circa 1957–1960, which offered two-track mono recording/playback and multiple speeds (including 1 7/8, 3 3/4 and 7 1/2 inches per second). These early machines often featured built-in amplifiers and speakers, and the WVB model even provided “before and after” monitoring along with echo and superimposition facilities — advanced traits for home decks of that era.
Other contemporary tube-based units included the Vortexion Mk 4 and the Type 2A, both released in the late 1950s or early 1960s, showing typical British portables of the period with balanced audio amplification and mechanical arrangements suited to hobby recording tasks rather than high studio fidelity.
Transition to Solid-State and Stereo (1960s)
By the mid-1960s, Vortexion updated its lineup with solid-state electronics and more capable transports. The CBL series, produced roughly from 1965 to 1968, was a notable step in this evolution. These decks used three motors and three heads with permalloy head assemblies, operated at multiple speeds (3 3/4, 7 1/2 and 15 inches per second), and supported half-track stereo operation. They offered improved frequency response and lower wow and flutter figures compared with earlier tube designs. Vortexion even claimed that with good microphones and signal sources these machines could produce recordings suitable for disc mastering, reflecting a higher-end consumer positioning for the period.
Late in the decade Vortexion briefly marketed the CBL7/T model around 1968/69, designed using the then-current Ferrograph Series 7 transport, but it did not achieve significant sales and was quickly withdrawn. This marked one of the company’s final forays into reel-to-reel hardware as the format faced intensifying competition from cassette decks and imports from Japanese manufacturers.
Market Position and Legacy
Vortexion’s reel-to-reel recorders were primarily British consumer products designed to combine basic recording/playback capability with features such as mix inputs, monitoring, echo and superimposition. They were not widely exported outside the UK but are remembered among vintage audio enthusiasts for their unique combination of British engineering and feature set relative to other domestic deck makers at the time. The brand’s machines are now considered collector pieces that illustrate mid-century tape recorder design in the British market.
SummaryBrand name: Vortexion
Country of manufacture: United Kingdom
Active reel-to-reel period: mid-1950s to late 1960s
Technology progression: Tube-based decks in the 1950s; solid-state stereo decks in the mid-1960s
Notable models: WVA, WVB, Mk 4, Type 2A, CBL series, brief CBL7/T
Market focus: Consumer/home audio and semi-high-fidelity application in the analogue era
Legacy: Distinctive British reel-to-reel machines with advanced features for their time, now vintage collector items.